A committee formed to help recall Weld County Commissioner Barbara Kirkmeyer is being bankrolled by a newly created dark-money group, raising questions about who is behind the recall effort.

We Care 4 Weld County is an issue committee formed to aid the recall effort, which started in earnest Wednesday, with organizers handing out petition packets to volunteers. The goal, said Lesley Hollywood, one of the group's registered agents, is to gather 8,000 signatures. The group needs 5,767, but committee members want a buffer in case some of the signatures are deemed invalid.

Kirkmeyer

Issue committees are required to disclose donors, and this committee has just one, a newly formed 501(c)(4) organization called 5767 Task Force.

"It was set up specifically to collect donations for this," said Gerald Kilpatrick, the other registered agent for the We Care 4 Weld County issue committee.

Kilpatrick said during an initial conversation that he thought Hollywood set up the 5767 task force.

Hollywood said she doesn't know anything about the dark-money group, and in a follow-up conversation, Kilpatrick said he had no idea who was behind the group, saying he made assumptions when he got the money.

Kilpatrick and Hollywood both say they know nothing about the dark-money group, and say the $4,500 came to their issue committee without a single conversation taking place.

"I just got the check," Kilpatrick said. "I figured it came from Lesley."

Hollywood, of Johnstown, in a phone interview Friday said the recall effort is two years in the making, describing happenstance run-ins at the grocery store with Sara Mondragon, the Platteville resident who filed the recall affidavit May 31. Mondragon, when reached Saturday morning, said she didn't have time to talk.

"For me, it's just time," Hollywood said, adding that the recall also could serve to put other commissioners on notice.

There weren't meetings, just some conversations on social media, Hollywood said, hinting at an overall lack of organization for what's thought to be an unprecedented recall effort in Weld County.

Documents and filings with the Colorado Secretary of State hint at a more sophisticated operation:

» The 5767 Task Force registered with the Secretary of State on May 9.

» The We Care 4 Weld issue committee registered June 6.

» The 5767 Task Force donated $2,500 just three days later, June 9.

» Four days after that, June 13, the 5767 Task Force donated another $2,000.

The 5767 Task Force is registered with a Loveland address that corresponds to a UPS mailbox. The registered agent is Lori Hughes, who lists a Leadville address in Secretary of State filings.

The Tribune could not reach Hughes.

The setup, as initially described by Kilpatrick, raises questions about transparency and the 5767 Task Force's nonprofit status.

"It appears this task force is a conduit for contributions to influence the recall effort, and that's impermissible under Colorado campaign finance law," said Kirkmeyer's attorney for the recall, Ryan Call. "It is pretty rich for the opponents to be accusing the commissioner of a lack of transparency when the overwhelming majority of the dollars they are raising come from these dark-money groups."

Indeed, the first sentence of Mondragon's recall affidavit is this:

"Weld County needs commissioners who represent their constituents' interests above their own and who govern with accountability and transparency."

In the affidavit, Mondragon goes on to accuse Kirkmeyer of leveraging her position for personal financial gain, as well as facilitating private meetings on topics that could have resulted in financial gain for other commissioners. The Tribune has not been able to verify the accusations against Kirkmeyer, and Kirkmeyer denies the allegations.

Amanda Gonzalez, executive director for Colorado Common Cause, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works toward open, honest and accountable government, said the undue influence of money in politics can erode public trust.

"It gets in the way of a functional democracy," Gonzalez said. "We want people's voices to be heard. Money in politics and a lack of transparency erode that."

Gonzalez said there are problems with the apparent setup of the issue committee and the 501(c)(4).

She said if the 5767 Task Force was set up for the sole purpose of funding an issue committee, it could become an issue committee under Colorado law by definition, therefore requiring the group to disclose donors.

An issue committee, according to the Colorado Constitution, has as its major purpose supporting a ballot issue or ballot question.

Donor intent matters, too, Gonzalez said.

"If I'm making a donation to a (c)(4), and I want that to go to an issue committee, the reporting requirements are that the issue committee should report that donation as if it came directly to them," Gonzalez said.

Finally, Gonzalez said 501(c)(4)s are social welfare organizations that don't pay taxes, and that's based largely on the types of activities in which those organizations engage.

They can conduct unlimited lobbying, and they may engage in partisan political campaign work. But that partisan campaign work, Gonzalez said, must be a secondary activity. That work includes anything that shows support or opposition for a candidate or group of candidates, according to IRS rules.

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"If that's their primary purpose, that should raise problems with their (c)(4) status," Gonzalez said.

Call, the former chairman of the Colorado GOP, doesn't buy the sort of haphazard setup Hollywood described when it comes to the recall.

The process has brought Call into the fold, as well as former Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, who will serve as special counsel to Weld County Clerk and Recorder Carly Koppes. The Weld County Council, an oversight board that has the power to suspend politicians facing recalls and replace those politicians should they be recalled by voters, is also looking to hire an attorney.

For Hollywood, We Care 4 Weld has both a motivated volunteer base and strong funding.

She handed out 42 packets, each capable of holding 80 signatures, Monday. She said she'll see where the volunteers are in a couple weeks before deciding to spend money on signature gatherers.

The group has until mid-August to collect the necessary signatures, and Hollywood said she's hoping for the recall to be on the November ballot, citing high turnout, particularly among Democrats, as a source of confidence Kirkmeyer would lose a recall election.

— Tyler Silvy is the deputy editor for The Greeley Tribune. Reach him at tsilvy@greeleytribune.com. Connect with him at Facebook.com/TylerSilvy or @TylerSilvy on Twitter.